Times 24778 – You’re right, it’s not a football team…..

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 33 minutes

Music: Richard Thompson, Dream Attic

I felt a little dull, and pondered a long time over some very obvious ones tonight. I was a bit distracted by the music; this is only my second listen, and I think it’s quite good – the violin and soprano sax are a new element.

There are a few UK-centric things in this puzzle that might prove difficult for non-UK solvers. Since I have only spent a total of nine days in the UK, I had to call upon my reserves of random general knowledge.

Across
1 UP TO SNUFF, UP TO + SNUFF, apparently where ‘up to’ means ‘about’ in some sense. Possibly ‘approximately’, as in ‘up to ten inches’/’about ten inches’, or maybe in the sense ‘he knew what they were about’/’he knew what they were up to’. Discussion invited.
9 INHERIT, IN + anagram of THEIR.
10 SHUT-EYE, anagram of THEY USE. Very elusive, because the ‘y’ usually goes at the end of something.
11 COBRA, CO + BRA, an obvious one I struggled with.
12 OTHERWISE, anagram of THEORIES + W[eight].
13 Omitted, but hinted at!
15 GROOM, G + ROOM. Another one I was very dull at seeing.
17 HEDGE, double definition. ‘Take evasive action’ is only metaphorical, as you short against the box or buy puts hoping to avoid the next ‘correction’.
18 SINCE, SIN(C)E. It took me a while to see a mathematical function was meant.
19 SINEW, SI + NEW. The problem of ‘si’ being a note stopped me for a while, but then I remembered Guido had used ‘si’ and not ‘te’, and it is still used in France and Italy.
20 PROBATE, P(ROB)ATE. I spotted the hidden meaning of ‘Will’ right away, and still couldn’t get it.
23 RAISE CAIN, double definition, one jocular. This was my last in, and I felt rather chagrined.
25 ODIUM, [s]ODIUM. I saw the peculiar spelling of ‘Na’ at once, but didn’t realize it was a chemical symbol until much later.
27 Omitted, look for it!
28 ITALIAN, IT + AL + IAN. All decent solvers know that ‘sex appeal’ is either ‘SA’ or ‘it’, and if you need a short man, it’s likely to be Al. Italian, in case you were wondering, is a Romance language.
29 TIGHT-KNIT, sounds like TIGHT NIT. I suppose we will hear they still pronounce the ‘k’ on one island in the Outer Hebrides.
 
Down
1 UPSHOT, UP + SHOT. That was easy, wasn’t it?
2 TOUCH AND GO, anagram of ON A DUTCH + GO.
3 STEERAGE, STEER + AGE. Another easy one I couldn’t call to mind immediately.
4 UTERI, UT[t]ER + I. I needed all the crossing letters for this one.
5 FISHERMAN, F + IS HER MAN, where ‘f’ is the abbreviation for ‘following’ in footnotes, although ‘ff’ is also correct.
6 CHA-CHA, double definition, my first in.
7 CRIB, double definition. To ‘crib’ is to use a cheat sheet, but it’s not really piracy when you pass the exam. Inexactitude for the sake of brevity?
8 STRANGLE, S[ociety] + TR[i]ANGLE. The abbreviation of ‘society as ‘s’ occurs, for example, in ‘SJ’ as a postpositive honorific.
14 INNOVATION, INN + OVATION.
16 OBSERVANT, [j]OB + SERVANT. Those who believed work = ‘op’ will waste a lot of time – I certainly did.
17 HYNOTIC, HYP[e], NOTIC[e]. Once you have the H _ P, it should be evident what the answer is.
18 SWEETEST, S + WEE + TEST. The ‘(little)’ helped me think of the shorter abbreviation for ‘saint’, but hindered me from seeing ‘wee’.
21 ARMPIT, anagram of I TRAMP. A very unexpected hollow, I would hope.
22 Omitted.
24 ICING, I + C + I[s] N[ot] G[ood]. A mixture of techniques, this puzzled me for a moment.
26 I SAY, ISA + Y. The ISA is what they have in the UK instead of the IRA (the one in the US, not the one in Ireland!).

50 comments on “Times 24778 – You’re right, it’s not a football team…..”

  1. I kept fumbling while typing, I think if I was on the ball this could have been one of my best times on the online version, as it was I had a correct grid in 9 minutes 35 seconds.

    25 reminded me of what is allegedly the first clerihew

    Sir Humphrey Davy
    Was not fond of gravy
    He lived in the odium
    Of having discovered sodium

    Good choice of music, I saw Richard Thompson a few years ago when he was doing his history of music shows, and then a few months ago he came back to Asheville and did a show last October, both excellent evenings.

  2. Nice start to the week. 19 odd min, but with 1 wrong. Us poor little kiwis don’t know about ISAs (or US IRAs for that matter) which made 26 kinda tough. Rather liked HYPNOTIC for its clever clueing, but hypnotics and sophorifics induce sleep in different ways (rather carrot and stick), so COD instead to RAISE CAIN. As a PS, I was moaning about the skittishness of on-line solving, but have found that my wireless mouse has been amusing itself with random extra clicks with interesting results, so, sorry Times site.
  3. Similar solving experience to Jonathan’s, taking a little longer (42:10), with one mistake, resolved, as often happens, after submission. Failing, as usual, to spot the ‘my’ at 26, I had put in any old thing (‘i way’, for what it’s worth).

    My musical education somehow missed out the Aretinian Syllables, so thanks for the explanation of 19.

  4. 24 minutes, with most problems where the odium of the hypnotic Italian’s armpit lay. The second of these (17dn), once seen, was I thought about the cleverest of today’s. But the clues for I SAY and ITALIAN were weak. A bit much to know Individual Savings Account!
    And with both so far on RT: the guitarist’s guitarist. Those who have not heard him should.
  5. I was unaccountably delayed by UP TO SNUFF. I’ve never heard the expression before, but really, what else could it have been? So a very slow 47 minutes for me.

    At 28 the wording of the clue led me to think the two men were Ali and Ian, but Al works just as well.

  6. I couldn’t believe how easy this was–at first. CHA-CHA, CRIB, READING, INTENT, SWEETEST, RAISE CAIN, ITEMISE, I was writing them as fast as I was reading them. And then, of course, I came to the SW. It didn’t help that I thought of ‘sidle’ instead of ‘hedge’, but it was 26d that did me in. I had thought I was over being suckered by ‘my’, but it took me several minutes to catch on (I’d never heard of ISA, but it wasn’t necessary, either; understanding ‘my’ was enough). So all in all it took me 23 minutes. And I know it’s not going to get easier tomorrow.
    ‘Crib’ can mean ‘steal’, no? as in ‘plagiarize’? ‘I cribbed a couple of paragraphs from an encyclopedia article’, that sort of thing.
  7. I just remembered: the other day, I sent a post to the club forum in which I said some puzzle was, or wasn’t, up to Times snuff. ‘snuff’ was replaced –automatically, I assume– with asterisks.
  8. My time of 55 minutes will probably be amongst the slowest of the day, but I was distracted by a reading from Douglas Mawson’s Home of the Blizzard on the radio (sub-titled Waiting for the Final Crevasse). Strangely, that reading didn’t help solve 13ac. I too was waylaid by what should have been easy clues such as INTENT, the utter of UTERI and WHAT THE SNUFF in general, but mostly in the SW, not helped by having confidently entered DODGE (fence as in the criminal activity) at 17ac. COD to HYPNOTIC, when I finally got it and some time later when I understood it.

    Oh, and thanks for the Richard Thompson link, Jonathan, which I almost managed to watch in the correct sequence. I’m sure most rock stars themselves feel that there is a large chunk of their lives missing from some part of the 70’s; I discovered in Richard’s case it was called Part 4.

  9. Initially annoyed with myself for taking 21 minutes over what felt like a possible gimme – but seeing above comments I begin to accept a genuinely tricky layer. Not sure about 1 ac. though – both for “up to” = “about” and “feeling good” – rather “good enough” I’d have thought. Still, it all switches the ignition on for the week ahead, in a slightly sluggish way.
  10. a steady 34 minutes solve that should have been faster…not sure about the dd for hedge but there we go…and why is Hype =form or notice? anyway i agree with bloggers that if you have H?P what else could 17 down be!
    well blogged…a plesaing start to the week!
    H
  11. 40 minutes but would have been somewhat quicker if I had not had go back and re-think a couple of answers which solving cold without any checkers would both have fitted the clues. At 1dn I had UPTURN and at 17ac I had DODGE. These errors made completing the puzzle impossible until corrected. ITALIAN was my last in and added full five minutes to the solving time.

    I don’t think I agree with the dissenters re 1ac. UP TO SNUFF can mean ‘in good health’. Meeting a required standard is more ‘up to scratch’ in my opinion.

    1. Straight out of the Mac (US) Oxford:

      PHRASES
      up to snuff, informal 1 meeting the required standard : ‘they need a million dollars to get their facilities up to snuff’. • in good health : ‘he hadn’t felt up to snuff all summer’. 2 Brit., archaic not easily deceived; knowing : ‘an up-to-snuff old vagabond’.

      1. Oh well. My newish Brewer’s makes a distinction between scratch and snuff, but at least all seem to support the meaning required in today’s clue.
  13. SW corner, due simply to ignorance, took as long as the rest of the puzzle put together, at least once I had fathomed that “disturbance” was not the anagrind for “to create a” in 23. If having an apparent anagrind immediately after a phrase containing the required number of characters for the answer was deliberate then that is deviousness bordering on the wicked, but gets my COD either way. Like Jack and Koro stuck in DODGE early on, didn’t know that Na was sodium or that some languages are called Romance. Knee-jerked exclamation mark after My! but was convinced that first word must be O eg O Man, O Boy, O God, but of course had to go back some decades and up a few classes to see I SAY. Even once solved I took a while to see ISA even though I have just spent some days considering various ISA options for my meagre savings.
  14. Like some others I found this dead easy right up to the bottom left corner.. hypnotic took ages to find as did 25ac and 28ac. 17 mins overall

    Richard Thompson, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny aaaah… what a *great* decade the 1960s was. I must catch up with his subsequent career, thanks much for the youtube link! As one of the comments says, truly hes a leg end.

  15. Feeling quite pleased with myself after completing in 11 minutes, my best for ages. And that after an unaccountably slow start where the first few in the NW refused to concede. Once started, everything fell into place. READING University reminded me of the spoof version of University Challenge with (if memory serves) Hubert Reid Reid from Reading reading the collected readings of Herbert Read. Sadly, I can’t place the source – does anyone know?

    CoD to HYPNOTIC, closely followed by RAISE CAIN for making it all the way from a Christmas cracker.

  16. I had all but six clues in the SW finished in under 8 minutes today, but took another 20 to finish the puzzle. ODIUM last in and it took a while after solving for the penny to drop.
    I’m glad to see I’m not alone in having put in DODGE: seeing this mistake was the key to cracking the puzzle. I’m a little miffed by it I must say because this isn’t really what “hedge” means.
  17. Add me to the DODGE brigade – and I think it’s a better answer! I can’t see Na without thinking sodium so that was no problem but 17D was a headscratcher until I twigged “hype” and realised I had made a mistake. Very simple puzzle apart from the SW corner.
  18. I think I am missing something – I don’t understand how fence could equal dodge? Enlightenment would be most welcome! (Artful Dodger perhaps?)
    1. ODE has “conduct a discussion or argument in an evasive way”.
      A bit weak perhaps but no weaker than “take evasive action” for “hedge”.
      1. Thanks keriothe, I sort of get it now and agree that ‘hedge’ isn’t really a fence either!
        1. I’m open to correction by those who follow the sport (or anyone else) but I think hedges and other obstacles on race courses are or can be referred to generically as fences.
          1. I didn’t have a problem with this part of the clue, and thinking about it “fence” and “hedge” can both mean to talk evasively, so it kind of works even if you’re not happy calling a bushy barrier a fence.
            I was unhappy with “hedge” for “take evasive action” and it probably cost me 15 minutes.
            1. Sorry for the confusion but I was responding to tringmardo’s point immediately above my last.
  19. I found the North East more problematic than the South West. Was stumped by Cobra and Crib and Since! But then I was fairly slow on the uptake the whole way through…..taking a long time to get some that seemed very obvious in hindsight.
    Louise
  20. I found this mostly easy, but after 25 minutes I still had the SW corner to complete. It took another 11 minutes to solve 21, 25, 26, and 28.
    Unless there’s a Captain Crib, I don’t think the double definition in 7 is convincing. Re the Dodge/Hedge debate above, if Dodge had been the answer it wouldn’t have been a double definition; surely it would have been two versions of the same definition.
    1. Fair point. Not to mention the fact that it would have made 17dn impossible… oh wait, it did!
      I thought of “crib” and “pirate” as more or less synonymous verbs meaning to copy without permission.
  21. 36:10 – with the last 6 minutes of that spent on 26 & 28 in the SW corner. As soon as the My penny dropped, they both went straight in.
    Nothing outstanding here, pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. Nice to get back to normality after Friday’s experience!
  22. Cornwall corner was hardest for me too.

    I seem to recall that Richard Thompson is a big Times crossword fan, and it kinda shows in his music
    “technical virtuouso”, “guitarist’s guitarist”, etc. Nice compliments but he doesn’t have the soul of a Bert Jansch say.

  23. Like others, I thought I was in for a personal fast time on this. At 18 minutes I had all but HYPNOTIC, HEDGE (I had put DODGE from definition alone) and ITALIAN. It took me another 20 minutes to stagger home! Strangely enough, I’d had ITALIAN early on from the cryptic but didn’t get the definition from “Romance”. I still think it’s a bit unfair. Italian is a romance language but not, surely, a romance. I think I must be missing something here. (I just looked again and think maybe the phrase “that covers this” has some meaning that completely escapes me)
  24. Time: no bloomin’ idea.

    I somehow managed last night to print a Saturday puzzle from January that by chance I hadn’t previously seen. So I solved that, then realising my mistake this morning I decided to have another go at online solving – I thought like hey this is where it’s at and it’s like treeware is so totally stone age, dude, and what’s a printer anyway and solving in the clouds is like the new reality … so..

    I dutifully solved and submitted (having got into a total mess, typing clues in the wrong place, somehow going into ‘pencil’ mode without meaning to, etc etc) and now I have no idea how long it took me and no clue how to find out. When I reopen the puzzle there’s a time at the top that seems to suggest it took me more than twelve hours, but I only started about half an hour ago, so what the heck?

    ‘Your performance’ just seems to give me some (very unimpressive) averages related to my occasional, pathetic attempts at getting to grips with this online solving thing.

    I won’t even ask ‘Is it the website or is it just me?’ because I fear I already know the answer to that. Back to treeware for this solver.

    Oh, the puzzle seemed very easy apart from the SW, where the HEDGE does indeed seem dodgy.

  26. 11:30 here, so definitely on the easy side. I almost put in DODGE for 17A, but felt there might be a better alternative so waited until I had 17D to confirm it. No other hiccups today.
  28. Like others I thought I was heading for a fast time, but the SW corner did its worst, slowing me to a disappointing 7:13.
  29. Just over an hour (and of course with a break before the end — I can never do them in one go), and I needed a little help for I SAY, my last in, although without knowing what ISA is the “my” should be enough of a clue along with the crossing letters and the Y for yen. UTERI and ODIUM not very easy but otherwise OK. COD to ODIUM and RAISE CAIN.

    I don’t really want to post anonymously (hydrochoos writing here), but I’ve just installed a new operating system on my computer and have forgotten my password. So I’ll post this way before everything disappears.

  30. Didn’t check my time as I did it in several bits, but I thought this was the easiest for ages. Can’t help wondering why UTERI is right (Chambers) but, again according to Chambers, OCTOPI is wrong. (OCTOPUSES, OCTOPODES).

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